A recent survey of 54 micro-econometric studies reveals that exporting firms are more productive than non-exporters. On the other hand, previous empirical studies show that exporting does not necessarily improve productivity. One possible reason for this result is that most previous studies are...

Empirische Befunde zeigen, dass exportierende niedersächsische Industriebetriebe produktiver als vergleichbare nicht exportierende Betriebe sind, wobei diese Unterschiede bereits vor dem Exportstart bestehen (also eine Selbstselektion der produktiveren Betriebe auf Exportmärkte stattfindet),...

Using unique new data and a recently introduced non-linear decomposition technique this paper shows that the huge difference in the propensity to export between West and East German plants is to a large part due to differences in firm size and human capital intensity.